Pearl Farmers Market Report: Give it a Try...

This morning my wife and I headed down to the Pearl Brewery where they are holding the weekly Farmers Market now. We had heard a few good comments about it and were eager to see it for ourselves, especially since we had been by when it was still a work in progress.We were lucky to find a parking spot in the lot just under 281 and made the short walk toward the Full Goods building (I guess that is what it is called). Lots of people out and about and I could sense from the people we passed by that this was more of the Organic Crowd. And I don't mean that in a negative way, but you would understand if you had a line up of 6 people who regularly shop at Whole Foods and another 6 people who shop at a regular HEB. I'm sure that based upon clothing, shoes, and accouterments, you could pick out which 6 were the Organic Crowd.The entire area is clean and very welcoming. There seems to be a lot of people who are somehow working for the place, helping people with directions and such. Inside the Full Goods building, it looks pretty spiffy with all sorts of solar powered things and I especially liked the huge ceiling fan that looked big enough to be a helicopter rotor. The building is obviously still working on attracting tenants, but I think it will be a nice place to visit once more shops are open.The Farmers Market itself was set up in a back parking lot and it was pretty much full with vendors. And as you could imagine from the description of the clientele, I'm pretty certain all the vendors were strictly organic type farmers.We attempted to purchase some Bison jerky, but the guy was sold out. We actually thought about purchasing some of his Bison steaks, but had no way of keeping them cool since we were not headed directly home. Maybe next time.Halfway through the market, we decided to go down to the Pearl Springs portion of the River Walk. It is really, really nice and if it had not been for the heat, we probably would have walked more than just a few hundred yards of it. I'll post the pictures I took of it on the Flickr Page, but I did want to show this lucky dog who decided to take a dip.They have a small lock system for diverting water, it appears, to some of the water features. This small little water line is about 16 inches wide and maybe a foot or so deep. This lady was walking her Greyhound when she decided to cool herself off. I can't recall the dogs name, but my wife thanks it was Ginger. Anyway, she and her owner attracted lots of curious onlookers.Back into the Full Goods building, we went into the one shop that was open and thriving. The Mellisa Guerra store is half art store and half kitchen store. We went in and it was very impressive and worthy of a look around. At some point though, we felt a little uncomfortable by the young lady who would accost customers and politely request that she take the items they wanted to purchase and hold them at the counter.

That's fine I suppose, but it got a little old being followed around to see if we would pick up something else to purchase, and naturally need to have it placed at the counter to save us from having to carry it ourselves. WTF? We cut our shopping short and while we stood at the counter waiting for the cashier to locate our items, my wife said she would just as soon not make the purchase. And our surveillance officer standing behind us seemed not to mind one bit.

Don't let our uncomfortable experience sway your opinion, I suspect riffraff like us should just learn to deal with it.

We really enjoyed it otherwise and will certainly return, though I suspect if we need anything from the Mellisa Guerra shop, we'll handle it online. Okay; not likely.

The Fiesta Report: Smells Like Fart...

We got in the habit when our kids were a lot younger that we would take one day during Fiesta, go down to the Market Square for a brief wandering through the area, eat some vittles, see all the weird people found during the day, then leave before the evening crowd arrived. It isn't that we are anti-social (okay, maybe a little), but the truth is, if we wanted to have our kids mingle amongst a bunch of sweaty people spilling beer on everyone and acting all a fool, we'll just have a cook-out at home and save a bunch of money.So over the years, we got in this habit of going to the same place, doing the same thing and we have it down to about a two or three hour operation. Since we did it today, I took a few pictures that I'd like to show you and perhaps make a comment or two about.I already mentioned that we had lunch at La Margarita, then it was off to gawk at our fellow citizens and the tourists who try so hard to understand our ways.

During the early afternoon, people drink just as though they were attending in the evening. Granted, many of the same people who drink during the day continue drinking into the evening, hence my references to spilled beers. But what this causes is a serious fart smell that permeates the area. And imagine if you were at face level with every ass in the crowd? The music is loud and when people gyrate to the sounds, I guess it just happens. Or in my case, I wait until I'm around someone who looks like they would be the guilty person, and I generally let loose there.You can always tell who started really early. They are the lone dancers. They got the beat. The rest of us gawk. The tourists assume that it is part of the show.San Antonio is not a svelte city. But we look good at it.If you live in San Antonio and understand the "lingo", you would recognize this picture as a solid candidate for Jay Leno's Headlines. But I don't know about "Delicious".
Lest you think it's just a freak show, there are lots of otherwise entertaining things to see at the Mercado. Great bands and people who can do more than make fools of themselves on the dance floor. This couple put on quite a show.My wife wanted me to get out there and dance with her but she realized that some idiot would take pictures of me doing my fantastic dance-moves in public, and she'd end up as an example of what not to do on someone's blog, so instead, we just enjoyed the sights and were happy to leave before anything really got going.